Steve Webb said that the Government wants to provide pensioners with a rough life expectancy when they reach retirement to allow them to make better financial decisions.

Experts will take into account factors including gender, where a pensioner lives or whether they smoke, the pensions minister said. Life expectancy should be part of “guidance” given to help people decide how much to save.

In last month’s Budget, George Osborne announced the scrapping of rules that force most Britons to use their pension savings to buy an annuity.

From next year it will be much easier and cheaper to withdraw money directly from a pension savings pot for other purposes.

But critics fear that people could end up struggling financially if they spend all their money soon after retiring.

Mr Webb told The Daily Telegraph that individuals often underestimated their own life expectancy.

“The idea is that you come to think about retiring, [but] you don’t know how long that retirement is going to be,” Mr Webb said. “What we do know is people get it wrong and they underestimate how long they’re going to live.

“At 60 most people will have parents still alive so the best guide they’ve got about how long they are going to live is their grandparents. That’s two generations ago so they tend to underestimate how long they are going to live.

“My idea … is to say to somebody, ’look, someone of your generation, living in this part of the country, you’ve not smoked, someone like you could easily live for 27 years’.”

Newly released figures show that life expectancy is rising steadily across the UK with women born now projected to live 82.7 years on average. Average male life expectancy is now 78.9 years.

David Spender / Flickr

However, for those who reach the age of 65, life expectancy is considerably higher, as the overall figure is an average brought down by the number who are likely to die young.

The new figures, from the Office for National Statistics, also suggest that young people with healthy lifestyles from poorer parts of the UK are moving to more prosperous regions.

Mr Webb said that the guidance would be given face to face by savings advisors to any pensioner who requests it.

He promised that the plans would not be “crass and insensitive.” “I don’t think it would be tailored to the individual,” he said. “You would potentially have a table … with gender, where you live … and you could then say, ’this is the number on the chart for you’.”

He has said that he is “relaxed” about the idea of the retired buying Lamborghinis with their pension savings. “It’s entirely people’s own choice what they do with their money,” Mr Webb said Wednesday. “This isn’t the Government telling them what to do with their own money. But what it is saying is that when they make their own choices, we want to make sure they do it on the basis of full information.”

He added that people would have “longer working lives” in future and could take on a second or third career before reaching retirement. “The Chancellor has talked about pension ages of 69 and beyond, so the idea that people will leave higher education at 21 or 22 or leave school at 18 or whatever and just do one job for 50-odd years is implausible,” he said.

“That means doing different things, retraining, moving from something more physically demanding to something less demanding [or] gradually easing your way out of work.”

The ONS figures also showed stark regional divisions in life expectancy and suggested that the migration of healthy young people to prosperous areas in search of better paid jobs is widening the north-south life-expectancy gap.

Estimates suggest that a girl born today in Purbeck, Dorset can expect to live to 86.6 years on average, 14 years longer than a boy born in inner-city Glasgow.

Overall life expectancy is rising across the UK with women born now projected to live a full year more than was the case four years ago. Men are narrowing the gap rapidly, gaining almost 17 months. In a handful of areas in southern and eastern England, the overall figure for male life expectancy has passed 80. It is highest in East Dorset, at 82.9 years.

Glasgow City has the lowest figure for both males and females at 72.6 and 78.5 years respectively.

But the biggest recent gains have been in London, which has one of the youngest and fastest growing populations.

Average male life expectancy in the capital has leapt by more than 19 months in the past four years. Female life expectancy is up by well over a year.

The ONS said in a commentary that patterns of north-south migration appeared to be creating what amount to ghettoes of poorer health in some areas and healthy pockets elsewhere.

It said many factors may be responsible including wealth, working conditions, education and lifestyles.

But it added: “One factor that has received less attention is the selective migration of healthy individuals from poorer health areas into better health areas or vice versa.”

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